Adoption
What surprised you during your Home Study...
What did you not know about going into your home study? What changes did they ask you to make that maybe surprised you?
Were you told to lock up cleaning chemicals?
Anything you found odd or different?
I'd love to hear about your experiences and what you took from it.
Thanks,
Jamie
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Re: What surprised you during your Home Study...
We went into it pretty prepared. DH was most concerned about how invasive the HS would be, so he spent a good hour on the phone with our SW, who walked us through the process. By the time we got to it, we were good
No, we weren't told to lock up cleaning chemicals.
I was surprised that the safety stuff wasn't really emphasized. Our SW had never heard of a fire escape ladder, and we had 2!
It was really pretty easy. Most of the meetings we had pre-walkthrough were stuff based on our autobiography. The actual walkthrough was 45 minutes, and kind of fun.
How little she cared about minor house issues (I was terrified that she would not be OK with our deck, which is about 18" off the ground w no railing - she barely glanced at it).
Other than that, there were no surprises!
From what I can tell, it's really only in foster home studies that they address things like locking up medicines and the storage of dangerous substances/chemicals.
Like all the rest, I was stunned at how little of the 4-visit home study was about the house, and how much was about us, our families, our relationsp, our community and support network, how we planned to parent, etc.
15 treatment cycles: four early m/c
Moving forward with domestic infant adoption!
Home study approved 5/13, now just waiting...
Ours was for fostering, but I agree with previous posters. I was amazed at how easy it was. She pointed out a few things we needed to change for our fire inspection and we talked about our animals a lot (but we foster those as well and she needed all that info).
All of our chemicals are in an outside storage unit. I thought she was going to tell us we needed a lock for it, but instead she said "I'll let you be the gauge of if that's necessary depending on the kids that are in your house." So other than a locked cabinet for medicine, we really didn't have to do much.
TTC #2, Operative hysteroscopy March 2011; IVF #1 long lupron protocol April 2011-cancelled due to poor response; IVF #2 flare protocol May 2011=hospitalization due to abdominal hemorrhage during ER and no fert due to MFI issues. Moving onto international adoption from Moldova January 2013!
I haven't had my home study yet, but during our IA course it was talked about and they said that the cleanliness of the house was the least of their concerns. They even said that if the house was not super clean, it actually might look better for you because it means you can handle the mess of a child! Obviously not like unhealthily messy, but just normal clutter and living mess. I have no idea about the safety stuff, but they did also mention that the reason for the home study is to see you in person and talk to you in person about your life and reasons for adopting, child rearing plans, etc, etc... and if you have other kids they talk to your kids too. So what I took from that was that it was more to see you in your home on your turf rather then go over your house with a fine tooth comb.
This was for international adoption via my province though. It would be different province to province and state to state I would assume, as well as type of adoption.
Daughter #1 - February 12, 2010
natural m/c March 11, 2011 at 8 1/2 weeks
Daughter #2 - January 11, 2012
Ectopic pregnancy discovered November 6, 2012 at 6 weeks
Daughter #3 - January 19, 2014
Started our exploration into the world of international adoption June 2012. We have no idea what this is going to look like but we are excited to find out!